A consortium of 16 venture capital (VC) firms, which are part of the Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association (IVCA), on Tuesday announced a commitment of ₹500 crore to invest in 31 homegrown artificial intelligence (AI) startups, marking one of the largest coordinated funding efforts focused exclusively on India-built AI companies. The announcement was made on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had organised an ‘Impact AI PitchFest’ which featured presentations from 31 AI startups building deployable solutions across enterprise and public-impact sectors. As part of the programme, IVCA brought together 16 VC investors to put money in these companies. The investors included 3One4 Capital, 888VC, Accel Ventures, Ankur Capital, Antler, Boundless Ventures, Capital A, Chiratae Ventures, Dallas VC, Inflection Point Ventures, Mount Growth Fund (Kavaach), PeakXV Partners, Piper Serica, Prosus, Seafund and SenseAI.
On the investment, Abhishek Singh, additional secretary of MeitY, said, “India’s approach to AI is anchored in real-world deployment, public value and inclusive scale. The Impact AI PitchFest reflects the growing maturity of India’s AI ecosystem. It is encouraging to see structured alternate capital participation supporting startups that are building deployable, scalable solutions. Such collaboration between government and industry will be central to strengthening India’s leadership in trusted and responsible AI.”
Speaking on behalf of the alternate capital ecosystem, Rajat Tandon, president of IVCA, said, “India’s AI ecosystem is entering a phase where innovation must be matched with patient capital and structured support. The ₹500 crore commitment by our VC members reflects a shared conviction in the quality and ambition of Indian AI founders.”
Prashanth Prakash, partner at Accel, said, “What we saw at the PitchFest was genuinely exciting. The breadth of applications was striking. Teams tackling everything from recruitment and education to healthcare and defence, all with deployable AI solutions. But more than the sectors, it was the quality of founders that stood out. They’re technically deep and they understand their markets.”
 "IVCA consortium commits ₹500 crore to fund 31 India-built AI startups")
